Casio Exilim EX-F1 Review

Thanks Cliff;

Good review, but in a world of limited time noone can be expected to catch everything. A few comments/updates from an owner of an EX-F1:

1. Startup time is halved to 2 secs at most by installing the latest firmware (v. 1.02).

2. You do get 60 shots in a sequence. But you are not limited to having them all in one or two seconds. You can have them at 60, 30, 20, 15, 10 or less shots/second, so for instance at 10 shots per second you have 6 seconds of shhoting time. (You can also shoot at about 2 shots per second indefinitely using AUTO-N).

3. You say "of course" you can't save a burst of RAW images. You can't, but it's not "of course". The camera buffers raw images in its 512mb internal memory, and converts them to jpeg on save. Technically, you could save the raw images ... but it would take about 5 minutes, so I suspect Casio simply disallowed it as an option.

4. You don't really mention the precapture mode. This allows one to half-press the shutter. Images are now written to the internal buffer, cyclically. So, if for example you chose 20 shots per second and a 40 shot buffer, at any point in time you have the last 2 seconds of shooting in the buffer. Pressing the shutter fully saves 2 seconds of shots from before you pressed the shutter, and 1 second after.

So, if for example you're shooting your child's soccer match, all you have to do is stand near the goal, track the action, and when the ball goes in, press the shutter. You -know- you've got all the action as you have the 2 seconds before you pressed.

5. The video isn't full 1080p. It's 1080i, 60 fields per second. Of course, that could be de-interlaced to 1080p/30. As most TVs do 1080p/24, in some ways it's a pity that isn't offered as an option. It does do 720p/60, and pretty good video too.

6. For some reason, many people get upset over the fact that there is no sound with the slow motion videos. A moment's thought will prove of course that on replay at normal speed the sound would be slowed down 10 times (or more for the faster ones) and so be incomprehensible.

7. The movement-sensor feature is pretty clever. You can set the camera up pointing at an area of interest (say a flower), press the shutter, and walk away. When a bird visits the flower, the camera detects the movement, and shoots. Hey presto, 60 high speed shots of the action.

8. Conclusion: Value for money? If you don't actually want all those features, poor. Apart from impressing the neighbors, a Ferrari is an absolute waste of money if you don't want to drive fast. If you DO want the special features the camera has ... there's no alternative on the market. Some DSLRs can get good speed - the D40 will do 7 shots/second. But it's more expensive once you start buying lenses, and doesn't do video. For me, its - the Casio EX-F1: $1,200 in Australia. Catching my son in the air with his hands held high and a smile on his face as the ball goes into the net: priceless. 1/10th of a second either side of that shot, you can't see his face, or he's blocked by another player.

some people expect a lot! - when is one fixed lens camera going to satisfy an enthusiast's every needs? seems to me that it does things no other camera does, and it doesnt cost a professional price - so why is this ridiculous? - having read the review, I'm having one!!

This EX-F1 has things other Superzoom cameras don't - Focus ring around barrel, external audio jack, threaded lens for filters, hot shoe.

I was looking at the Sony HX-1 and Canon SX1 IS. They are the 2 most popular cameras but they don't have most of the features above.

The list price being a whopping $999 is a big problem. It's twice the price of the Sony an d Canon BUT I'm almost willing to pay something in the range of $700-800 for it because Casio cared enough to put things on it that pro photogs use. The slow motion is just a great bonus toy for me but not my main reason for wanting to get it. Is this really from Casio? Amazing.